Profit excluding certain costs was 19 cents a share,
Juniper said yesterday in a statement, compared with the average
analyst projection of 16 cents, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg. Sales were $1.07 billion, while analysts had
estimated $1.05 billion.

Juniper has rolled out new, higher-margin routers, trying
to pick up business amid sluggish demand from telecommunications
companies and stepped-up competition from Cisco Systems Inc. and
Hewlett-Packard Co. The quarterly results show that Juniper’s
newest gear, especially its T4000 router, is starting to gain
traction, said Brian Marshall, an analyst at ISI Group.

“It’s moving in the right direction,” Marshall, who is
based in San Francisco, said in an interview. “Expectations
were extremely low. The better quarter is a good thing. The
guidance is conservative.”

In the third quarter, profit excluding some costs will be
15 cents to 18 cents a share on sales of $1.04 billion to $1.08
billion, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said. Analysts
on average had estimated profit of 21 cents and revenue of $1.11
billion.

Riverbed Partnership

Second-quarter net income fell to $57.7 million, or 11
cents a share, from $115.6 million, or 21 cents, Juniper said.
Sales in the year-earlier period were $1.12 billion.

Separately, the company said it will pay Riverbed
Technology Inc. $75 million to license products that help boost
application performance. The two companies will also collaborate
on products that increase the efficiency of large networks and
speed mobile technologies.

Shares of Riverbed, which also posted better-than-forecast
second-quarter profit yesterday, jumped 24 percent to $18.10.
Profit before certain costs was 23 cents a share, the San
Francisco-based company said in a statement, compared with the
21-cent average analyst estimate.

Under Pressure

Shares of Juniper have tumbled 27 percent this year through
yesterday as orders from telecommunication-service providers
faltered and Cisco grabbed market share with price cuts and
aggressive sales strategies. Juniper and Cisco are both under
pressure from subdued spending on networking equipment,
particularly among government agencies and in Europe, where the
debt crisis has crimped demand.

Juniper plans to pare $150 million in operating expenses in
2013, with most of the reductions occurring in the second half,
Chief Financial Officer Robyn Denholm said on a conference call
with analysts. David Shane, a Juniper spokesman, said that some
of the savings will come from job cuts, though no further
information is available.

Cisco, the world’s largest computer-networking equipment
maker, said earlier this week it was cutting about 1,300
workers, or 2 percent of its workforce, in part because of the
“economic environment in certain parts of the world.”

Juniper gets more than 60 percent of revenue from
telecommunications companies. In May, Chief Technology Officer
Pradeep Sindhu said demand for Juniper’s gear from those
companies was “unsettled” and deals were taking longer.

On June 12, Juniper reduced its forecast for gross margin,
the percentage of revenue left after subtracting production
costs, for 2013 to 2015 to 63 percent to 66 percent. That was
down from a previous forecast for gross margin of 66 percent to
68 percent. Revenue will rise 9 percent to 12 percent in 2013 to
2015, Denholm also said last month.